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Your bedroom is finally beginning to feel like yours, and you're feeling happy that you finally get to have a bedroom to yourself, since your parents were able to buy a bigger house for the family.
You hear a crash downstairs, and few seconds later, screams from your mom about how your older sister needs to be more careful. Your older sister was 13 and always getting in trouble. The one time when you purposely broke something to get their attention, they had blamed your sister for not watching you. After that, you decided that it wasn't worth it, and that you would just try to be content with reading alone in your room until you left home, and didn't have to live where all of your siblings got all of the attention due to being more talented or being troublemakers.
Your older brother was great in academics, yet was great at balancing that with a social life. He may have just moved here along with the rest of your family, but he had already managed to somehow make friends despite it being the summer and them arriving after school had ended. Your older sister was three years older than you, and was always getting into trouble, but even she was more talented than you. She was gifted in sports, and scraped by enough to your parents off her back about grades. You had two baby twin siblings, brother and sister, who fortunately, weren't talented yet, but you wouldn't be surprised if they would when they finally were able to walk. Your parents loved you. That didn't mean that they had time for you. Babies took up even more time than your older sister.
The noise finally stopped downstairs and you were able to read again Usually, you could cancel out the loud noises. God knows, you were used to it. Tonight, however, your brain, seemed to have trouble functioning with too much noise.
An hour later, you were still reading, when you could hear your parents starting to yell again. Moving had made them argue a lot for the past two weeks. It had been driving you crazy.
Finally, you had had enough. You grabbed your backpack. You made sure you had a flashlight, because it would be dark by the time you got back to the house, and you packed your book. You went downstairs and could hear your parents in the kitchen. "You need to talk to your daughter about having respect for other people's things. I am always the person to talk to her."
"It was an accident. Relax."
"Don't tell me to relax." Your sister was probably in her room, ignoring your parents. The babies started to cry. As your mom picked up the babies, they finally stopped arguing. You opened the door, and walked outside. Still better to leave than have to listen to your baby siblings cry for an hour, and then possibly hear your parents pick back up on their argument. When you got home, you knew that they would probably be angry at you, but you figured you would deal with it later. At least they probably wouldn't be able to blame your sister for this, and actually have a conversation with you.
It was close to dark now. It was summer, so it was still decently later than you should be out on your own. Still, you didn't care about this, as you remembered that there was a very small area of woods a few blocks from your house that could give you some peace and quiet. You walked there and sat down on the grass. You didn't care about getting too dirty. You pulled out your book and flashlight and began to read.
After ten minutes you heard several people running, you looked up, and saw four boys running from the street and coming towards the woods. One of them locked eyes with you, and smiled. You found yourself awkwardly smiling back. You had a few people you had been friendly with at school, but not really anyone you would call a friend, so you were already worried that you would make a bad impression, and blow any chances of friendships in this new place.
The brown haired boy poked one of the boys, and they all stopped and looked at you. You felt so self-conscious. The boy turned around and whispered to them. They all nodded.
The boy ran up to you.
"What are ye doing here alone? Ye could get kidnapped." It was the first time you had ever heard an Irish person that wasn't on TV. You realized now that he was close to you that he had green hair and blue eyes.
"You're here."
"I'm not alone though."
"I'm reading a book. It was too loud at my house." I figured he would ask me more questions, and tell him about my family. Instead, he stuck out his hand.
"My name is Jack. Come on with us into the woods. It's a stupid thing to do, but it'll be fun. And we're all together. We'll be fine."
You hesitated, but you put your book away, and grabbed his hand, and he helped you up. He brought you over to the other boys. "This is Bob, Wade, and Mark." He pointed to each of them as he said it.
You tried to examine them, but it was pretty dark, and you didn't want to shine a bright flashlight in their faces. They all smiled at you.
"What's your name." You think it was Mark that asked that.
"I'm Y/N."
"Nice to meet you."
"Come on, we have to show y/n around the woods."
For the rest of the night, they all led you around the small woods. There was a tons of beautiful trees and a very small and shallow creek. You all laughed and played hide and seek in the woods for the hour or so that you were there, before finally, it was time for you all to go back. When you walked out of the woods and onto the sidewalk Jack asked you where you lived. You told them that you lived two blocks away. They lived on the same street as each other, but lived in that direction, so they walked you to your house.
"Bye. See you tomorrow." Jack said friendly. They walked off. You felt warm and fuzzy. Just like that you have found friends.
You tried to open the door, but it was locked. Of course! Your parents had assumed that you had stayed inside your room and hadn't checked to see that you weren't in your room. You were locked out. You were about to knock and wake up your parents.
At that moment, you heard the door open, and you saw your older sister pop out. You quietly went inside and you followed your sister upstairs. She then went into your bedroom and quietly closed the door behind her. "You are so lucky that I saw you outside, or you would have had to explain a lot to mom and dad. What were you doing?"
"Thanks for letting me in." Your sister was annoying, but she at least had the decency to help you out.
"No explanation?"
"I'm tired!"
"Ok, fine." Your sister huffed, and walked out of the room. You wondered if you would be lucky enough in the future, but somehow doubted it.
For the rest of the summer, you hung out with your new friends almost every day. You got the closest to Jack, but you liked all of them. They were all very funny and kind to you, but also didn’t mind teasing you. It never got too mean though. It was always in good fun. Jack showed you where all of the things about the small town, and all of the people. He might have only been there for two years, but he had learned a lot, and didn't mind helping out a new person. You would hang out at day sometimes, and night other times. Sneaking out wasn't always required, because your new friends met your parents,and they seemed more than willing to let you stay over at any of their houses. There was also many hours of playing video games and yelling at each other. But on the nights where sneaking out was required,you would borrow the spare key and put it back before anyone noticed that it was gone. You would ask for your own, but you didn’t want to tell your parents why you needed one.The one time you forgot to return it before your brother needed it caused your assume one of the twins got to it. You had to pretend to help look for it, and find it in their room, but other than that, you got surprisingly good at sneaking out. Your sister seemed to know what you were up to, but didn’t question you after you admitted that you were only playing tag and games.You didn't know why your sister was being so nice about it, but you were grateful.
One the final night before school, after the five of you all had convinced your parents that you had gotten everything you needed for school, and were ready, you all snuck out and went to the forest. Just for an hour. You were both sad that the summer was ending, but you were excited to be starting the school year with your new friends.
Fortunately, you and Jack had first period together. You weren't sure of the rest of your classes, because they hadn't mailed that out when they had let them know, but you were excited to have your first class with Jack. You kept it to yourself though. Mark was moving up a grade, and was going to be in the 7th grade with people he didn't know. The only person he would know what a boy named Felix that you had never met before. Mark had begged his mom to not make him, but she told him that this would be good for him.
You all played a quick game of tag. But it didn't last long, and you all sat down on a blanket that you had packed for this, and you all spoke about the new year.
"What do you guys want for the new year?"
"I hope math sucks less." Jack said. We all nodded in agreement, except for Mark, who didn't have nearly as much trouble as the rest of us.
"I want Mark to stop messing things up and blaming me."
"Shut up, Wade!"
We all laughed.
"I want Wade to stop knocking into me in the hallway when we walk to classes. "
"Actually, I'm with Mark on this one. Can that be mine too?"
It was your turn. You didn't say anything at first.
"What about you y/n?" Bob asked.
"I don't really have one." You weren't sure if you wanted to admit what you used to wish for, but after Jack gave you a look that said to go on, you decided that you should.
"I wanted friends when I moved here. I didn't want to be alone at home and at school, I already got what I wanted."
You were sure your friends were going to tease you, but before anyone could do that, Wade responded. "AWWWWWWW... that's so sweet!!!!!!" He was part being sincere and part teasing you, but it caused all of you to burst out laughing.
"Wade, I told you to shut up! Y/n was having a moment with all of us, and you ruined it!"
After everyone laughed, they walked you to your street and you all said that they would see each other on the bus tomorrow.
You were excited not just for tomorrow, but for everything this school year would bring. You had finally found a group of friends and place where you belong.